It would also remove "double-dip" pension costs and eliminate payments for such non-instructional services as athletics, saving districts -- already hit with reductions in state funding --- about $500 million over five years.

“I think it’s time we have a thorough examination of how [charter and cyber charter schools] operate,” Fleck said. “They don’t have an elected school board. You can’t vote their school board out of office… this bill is about accountability.”

Fleck said the legislation would be available online later today, and that it has 36 co-sponsors. School administrators are backing the legislation, calling it a badly needed fix at a time of declining state support for public schools. The school officials complained today that they're paying more to charter schools than they receive in support from the state.

"This bill is not about opposing charter schools. But the funding formula that is in [current] law is not working," said Tom Gentzel of the Pennsylvania School Boards Association. "These costs are driving [districts'] programs farther into the ground.

Lawrence F. Jones, president of the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools (PCPCS), said that charter schools are already underfunded by the state.

“Even the auditor general has said that charter schools are funded at 25% less than traditional public school students,” Jones said. “An honorable bill or person would clearly look at that simple number and how can you possibly say that they’re being overfunded.”

Sign-wielding protesters, some of them students, ringed Fleck's event. They offered periodic -- and very polite -- boos to some of the speakers.

The legislation would affect more than 105,000 students who are currently enrolled in 167 charter and cyber schools, Jones said.